Chart of the Day: Is This the Chinese Housing Bubble?

Residential housing investment as a share of China's GDP
has tripled from 2% in 2000 to 6% in 2011 -- the same mark U.S. housing hit before imploding.

China is trying to tap the breaks on runaway housing, as home prices in Beijing and Shenzhen are up about 140% in the last five years. But this carries its own risks. Efforts to control home prices while raising interest rates could result in a wave of middle-class bankruptcies, McKinsey Quarterly predicted. Higher rates targeting inflation would reduce home prices just
as mortgage payments would rise.